


Finding a Family

by McGinnisINC



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-24
Updated: 2013-02-06
Packaged: 2017-11-26 16:34:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/652256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/McGinnisINC/pseuds/McGinnisINC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kate Argent made many mistakes in her life. But the worst mistake she ever made, in her opinion, was getting knocked up by a snot-nose teenage werewolf. </p>
<p>Stiles happens to disagree. </p>
<p>Thirteen years after the child was born and given up for adoption, Allison discovers that she has a cousin and Derek discovers that he has a daughter. And despite protest, Stiles decides that the best gift he can give his maybe-oblivious-but-probably-not crush is the gift of family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Things Hidden in Closets

It was essentially the worse thing that could have happened to her, she decided. The little plastic stick had beams of light glancing off it and for a moment she just stared at the design those nondescript glares made. When she closed her eyes those light beams sprung into the glowing yellow eyes of the last werewolf she had killed. 

The snarling teeth, the foam as he had tried to snap at her throat. As he had sagged into the grass-littered dirt, she had wiped his spittle from her face and decided that she should wash her hands sooner rather than later. 

But, here, in this bathroom, door locked as though it could protect this secret… Kate couldn’t let this happen.

Kate couldn’t believe she had let this happen. 

Every woman her age knew the kinds of precautions that they were expected to take and she had been careful to follow them. What? Did werewolves have some kind of super-sperm? 

Suddenly, her grip tightened on the little stick and she felt her rage sway her brain. This was obviously karma – some kind of backwards karma. The Hale clan getting one last shot at her – implanting her with their mutated, supernatural genes and plaguing her with this growing tumor. 

She chucked the stick into the trashcan and then kicked the can for good measure. 

She needed to go kill something. 

But first, she should probably get this taken care of.

~*~

The doctor was regretful.

Apparently, Kate had been a little too late in nipping this in the bud. 

A week after the Hale fire, Kate had been reassigned to Texas. There was a werewolf clan that needed to be disposed of. Too bad none of the wolves had been stupid enough to fall for her advances – she had had to deal with them the old fashion way. It had taken her about three moon cycles in order hunt down nearly every last one of them and when her period hadn’t come, she had blamed it on the stress of the hunt. It had happened before. 

But four months had passed since conception and Texas wouldn’t perform the procedure. 

There were still two wolves from this pack left to go and so Kate grit her teeth and threw her work into overdrive. If she got seriously injured, maybe she would lose the baby, she figured. 

No such luck. Actually – Kate did manage to get both of her legs broken and suffer an arrow to her upper chest. She was in the hospital for a month and a half. 

The baby was fine. 

And with the time that had passed, no clinic would take her.

So, she turned to alternative remedies – potions and herbs, briefly considered a coat hanger, and finally threw herself down a flight of stairs. 

Victoria caught on to what she was doing, thank god, before she tried to take the wolfsbane.

“Don’t use that,” her sister-in-law had advised. 

Kate lowered the flower from her lips. This was her last chance. Of course this was her last chance. Nothing else had worked – the baby inside her was not a baby, it was most certainly a werewolf – a monster. That was the only explanation for the way nothing seemed to work. The little demon was strong enough to survive all this. And truly – Kate hated that. 

“The… thing is attached to you,” Victoria explained, pulling the wolfsbane from Kate’s grasp. “If you use this, it will simply kill you, too. Before the Great Wolf migration a few female hunters in the early 1900’s were raped by werewolves and couldn’t seem to abort their demon children, either. Wolfsbane, while the logical cure for a werewolf fetus, did more harm than good. The woman simply began to spit up black blood and die.”

“That might be preferable,” Kate muttered, lowering herself onto the ground. She was drained. Her last option, gone.

Victoria kneeled next to her. “Chris must never know,” she told the younger woman.

“All he knows is that I got knocked up and that I’m not keeping the baby,” Kate explained, banging her head into the wall. “I was hoping I could just kill the damn thing and move on with my life – no need for that adoption shit.” Kate glanced up. “When did you figure out it was a werewolf?”

“After the… tumble you took,” Victoria stood and moved to leave the woman to her own thoughts. But she paused at the door. “I will find a suitable place for the infant, after birth. Don’t you worry.” And then she left.

For a brief moment, Kate sat on the floor and watched the moonlight shift against the wall. 

~*~

Years later, Allison Argent was cleaning out some of her mother’s old things from the closet. She hadn’t remembered that her mother’s things had been stuffed in here– she had thought she had cleaned out all of her personal belongings from the house ages ago. And yet, as she had been clearing the linen closet of some spare linens to take to her shared apartment with Scott, there were aged boxes and baskets of little trinkets.

Scattering them around her collapsed body, Allison let her fingers trail along the edge of each individual box, willing her moist eyes to stay at least dry enough to not smudge her carefully applied mascara. 

And that was how her father found her, sitting in the hallway, crossed legs and shaking fingers. 

“I forgot what she smelled like,” the young woman admitted. “It’s been so long and I just couldn’t remember until I opened this box. Does that make me a terrible daughter?”

“That makes you someone who has grieved and moved on,” her father consoled her, rubbing a rough hand up and down her spine. “Like she would have wanted.” Chris Argent leaned back on his ankles and picked the lid off another box, one of many scattered around the father and daughter. “What are all of these?”

“I don’t know,” Allison sniffed and swiped the back of her hand under her eyes. “I was grabbing some sheets for the apartment and there they were. I guess when we were clearing things out, we missed these.”

Neither of them acknowledged that they had cleaned the house of her memory because of grief first and shame second. It hadn’t been too long after her death that Allison and Chris had learned how she had been bitten that night – what Derek had interrupted. They would always love her and treasure her memory, but after Gerard’s betrayal, it was difficult to justify her actions – even after death.

“I’ve never seen these before,” Chris informed her. Gingerly, he pulled away from his daughter and picked through the box he had opened. His already solemn face darkened and Allison leaned over to see what had caught his attention: an ultrasound.

“Is that me?”

“No…” he trailed off. “Look at the date.” He held it up to light a bit more. “You would have been eleven.” And then his eyes widened. 

Allison opened her mouth to ask what was wrong, but her father was already digging through the rest of the box. The paper crinkled in his hands as he whipped page after page from the box, his eyes glazing over the script before discarding it on the ground beside him. Soon, Allison grew weary of waiting from him to respond, especially as he retreated deeper and deeper into his own head. 

“Medical bill,” Allison read aloud from the heading of the nearest piece of paper. “From St. Sebastian’s Hospital?” She gazed up at her father’s face but he was still absorbed in his own thoughts. Her eyes skimmed back down the bill until it landed on the recipient. “Kate?” Now she couldn’t be bothered to leave her father to his musing, “Dad – what is this? What’s going on?”

“I had – well, not forgotten,” he began, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I hadn’t forgotten about the child, but I had pushed it to that back of my mind, I suppose. This ultrasound,” he picked it up from the ground and gazed at it, “was of Kate’s baby.”

“Kate had a child?” Allison asked. “I have a cousin? Or…” Kate had never spoken of her pregnancy. And not all pregnancies end in a living child; Allison knew that. She let the implication that her aunt had lost the baby linger in the air.

“No,” Chris shook his head. “I mean – yes. She gave birth to a child and gave it up for adoption. She was young. It was, God, thirteen years ago? She was in the prime of her life – the best huntress of her generation and she didn’t want to be slowed down.”

“Who adopted it?” And then another question occurred to her. “Was it a boy or a girl? How old would it – he or she – be now?”

Chris shrugged and began to absentmindedly collect the papers, explaining, “It was a closed adoption. I don’t even know the gender of the child – I didn’t see it, I wasn’t there.” He replaced the papers in the box and continued, “We were in Texas at the time, just outside Austin, remember?” Allison nodded, though she also remembered that they hadn’t stayed very long. “Kate had been assigned to a Hunt somewhere in a more rural area up north in Texas. I remember because… right before the birth she had come to join us for a few months and then returned to the north.” A wistful look flitted across his face and Allison knew that in this moment, he was remembering his sister: the fierce and strong hunter. And at the same time forgetting this same woman had also slaughtered innocents. “Did you know, she took down a rouge pack while pregnant? It was in the early stages but I always thought that was so impressive. And it was right after taking out the Hale pack, too.” It was then that his expression shut closed. 

He was back to the reality that his sister wasn’t a huntress. She was a murderess pretending to have a cause. 

Allison reached over and placed her hands over his folded paws, resting like a ghost on the box. “She was good at what she did,” she commented carefully. Chris nodded, almost reluctantly. Finally, he took a deep breath and stiffly stood, bringing the box with him. 

Watching him leave the hallway, she still didn’t feel like everything had settled inside her stomach the way it should have. It wasn’t until she had the sheet folded in her childhood room, waiting to be transported to her apartment that she realized what was bothering her. 

“Dad?” she called, bouncing down the stairs. Her father was in the kitchen, still frowning down at that box. 

“Yes, honey?”

“When… when did the Hale house burn down? The exact date?”

Chris turned his frown to her, but it deepened as he wracked his brain a bit. “It was in the spring…” he pushed the information out of his mouth. “April? Yeah, April, mid-April.”

“And when was,” she swallowed the word “it” even though she still didn’t know the babies gender, “my cousin born?”

“January…” His expression clouded and he paled. “Why?”

“There was, well, there was something Scott said once,” she began. It wasn’t her secret to tell, but it hadn’t been Stiles secret to tell either, not when he told Scott and it hadn’t been Scott’s when he told her. “Stiles, he told Scott once that Derek had – had implied that Kate was able to get the Hale pack because she had gotten close to, well, had used Derek. I don’t know the extent of that… usage, but…”

“April to January is nine months,” Chris concluded. “Kate got pregnant while on assignment here in Beacon Hills.” His fingers dug into the box till it was dented. Allison gingerly pulled it from his grasp before he could do anymore damage. “And…” Chris breathed sharply from his nose. “You have reason to believe that Kate and Derek might have been intimate.”

“Well,” Allison glanced down at the box now in her hands and tried to quickly do the math. “Derek would have been, what? Sixteen? Don’t you think that’s kind of a big age-gap?”

“But not one that’s unheard of,” he decided. 

There was a beat and then suddenly Chris was heading for the front closet. Swiftly, he threw on his jacket and yanked open the front door.

“Dad?” Allison’s voice stopped him before he could completely disappear. “Where are you going?”

“I need to confirm something,” was all he said before the front door slammed closed. 

Allison remained in the foyer, worn box in hand, mouth agape and thoughts still spinning.

~*~

Stiles watched Derek carefully.

He had always watched the werewolf carefully. Originally because he wasn’t entirely certain that Derek wouldn’t kill him. Then because the trust between werewolf and human was strained with outside conflict and rash decisions made by the inexperienced alpha. And then finally because Stiles realized that Derek was pretty hot. And maybe Stiles might like him a little bit. Or a lot. 

It had been easier to watch him last year, Stiles was saddened to realize.

Senior year of high school had included the Hale house being rebuilt and the pack coming together. Erica and Boyd and Isaac and Scott and Lydia and Stiles and even Allison had found a safe place under the Hale house roof. Just in time to scatter around the country to various colleges. Only Isaac had stayed behind, forgoing college in favor of helping Derek start up his own mechanic shop. Derek had been able to begin the business straight out of pocket. In fact, Stiles was still at a loss as to why Derek wanted the business to begin with – the man had enough money to live very comfortably for a very long time. 

Every holiday break, the pack would congregate back in Beacon Hills and visit the Hale house. And then they all graduated. Erica, with a degree in kinesiology, hoping to find work as a personal trainer. Boyd, with a degree in English education, hoping to teach high schoolers. Allison, with a degree in business, hoping to… do whatever one does with a business degree (Stiles was a little convinced that even Allison didn’t know what she wanted to do with a business degree). Scott, with a degree in veterinarian science, hoping to work as, well, a veterinarian. Lydia… well, Lydia had graduated from her undergraduate studies in math after only two years and had decided if none of her friends were going to be back in Beacon Hills after such a short amount of time, that she might as well also get her masters in the mean time.

And then there was Stiles. Who had gotten a degree in history. And was still very much unemployed. 

As the only one without a job, he was also the only one with enough time on his hands to come visit Derek in the big Hale house at regular intervals. That first year after graduation, everyone had been looking for a job and for that one blessed year that Hale house had been full of friends and family: Erica and Boyd and Isaac had stayed in the rooms they had frequented in high school. Allison and Scott always dropped by. Lydia, as Stiles second best friend, had been dragged into visiting, but even her cutting sarcasm had once bounced up and down the halls of this manor. 

Now, everyone had moved on. 

Allison and Scott had moved in together. They had been going strong with their “can’t be together because of werewolf/huntress issues” up through high school and college. But once they returned to their hometown, it seemed nothing could keep them apart. Stiles knew if the cohabitation worked out, they would get married eventually.

Erica and Boyd were engaged. They had been one of those rare couples that got through college without separating and Derek had had to explain to Stiles that, “werewolves mate for life”. It was as simple as that.

Lydia was in her own apartment, working from home for some bigwig company in New York. She claimed it was temporary and she was just stockpiling money to pay for her doctorate. Stiles had gotten his chance with her. After Jackson left, Lydia had no idea what to do with herself. And Stiles hadn’t begrudged her the fact that she had rebounded straight into his arms – and his bed. It was the best and worst thing that could have happened to him. He finally got the chance to date Lydia Martin – his life was complete. But he hadn’t enjoyed it nearly as much as he had thought he would. It had taken over six months to realize that Stiles was forcing this into a relationship but she had accepted the break up with grace. 

Isaac lived with Derek of course, but he was busy working at the shop and was dating some woman he refused to introduce to the pack yet. 

So… Stiles had more free time than the rest and was therefore able to spend more time with Derek. Of course, with less people around, it was harder to just sit back and stare at Derek all day long. 

“If you want to be helpful, you could grab the calculator from the drawer in the kitchen,” Derek interrupted Stiles’ musing.

“Why do you need a calculator?”

“I am crunching numbers,” the alpha said, his voice deepening as though he could sense that Stiles was teasing him.

“And you need a calculator? Ever heard of mental math?” Stiles asked. When Derek only scowled at him, having absolutely none of his shit, Stiles pushed himself off the couch and came around Derek’s shoulder.

The alpha had papers scattered around the desk in the living room, quietly doing business work while Stiles was relaxing on the couch. 

“Those kinds of numbers were like, made for mental math!” Stiles joked. “They are almost calling out “your brain, use your brain, we want your brain!” They are like zombie numbers.” Stiles glanced down at Derek only to find the alpha staring at the young man, not amused in the slightest.

“You need a job,” Derek concluded. 

“So my dad keeps reminding me,” Stiles said, his face falling. His father had been riding his ass – as he should – about finding a job. He had never really had his dad’s blessing as a history major, but he had always rationalized that he was helping the pack. All the classes he had taken were aimed at learning obscure histories, trying to learn as much as possible about the occult.

As though he realized he had hurt the young man, Derek opened his mouth slightly. Maybe he was going to apologize. Instead, the doorbell rang and both of them jumped.

So much for werewolf senses, Stiles chided. 

Derek pushed past him and threw the door open. 

Chris Argent stood on the porch.

~*~

In retrospect, blurting out, “We need to talk” wasn’t the best course of action when dealing with an already uptight, suspicious werewolf. 

Derek gave a stiff glance back at the younger human in the room, and that was the first Chris realized that Stiles was there. Jerking his head toward the front door, Derek signaled that it was time for Stiles to leave.

“Is it pack business?” Stiles asked, refusing to budge.

Chris glanced anxiously at Derek – the alpha still suspicious but maybe not for the right reason. Would this count as pack business? The alpha of said pack maybe having a living child out there in the world would certainly affect the pack as a whole, but was it worth blurting out the whole situation before they knew if it was true or not?

After a brief moment, Chris shook his head.

“Stiles, leave,” Derek commanded. The young man frowned at the wolf, but exited the house. Derek turned to his age-old enemy and demanded, “Now, what is this about?”

He honestly didn’t know where to begin. “I was looking through some old documents and…” Chris shook his head as though to clear that line of explanation and instead just crossed his arms and began again. “I know my sister used you to get to your pack,” he said. Derek did just as he expected – tensed and clenched his fists. But what Chris didn’t expect was the shock of vulnerability that seemed to light up in his eyes for the briefest moment. It was gone before he could take too close a notice of it. “And I have come into some new information and I have something to ask you. It’s personal but it’s important. 

“Did you ever… have intercourse with Kate?” Chris finally managed to conclude.

Derek took a moment to process the question, his eyebrows shooting upwards and his mouth jerking downwards. And then everything shut in – his eyes glowing the violent alpha red and squinting around his shrinking pupils. Chris knew an angry werewolf when he saw one and for a moment he wished he had thought to bring at least one firearm. 

But just as quickly as he began to fear for his life, Derek’s anger seemed to fade away. 

“Why would you need to know something like that?” he finally managed to grit out.

Chris held his gaze and stood his ground, “I just need to know.” 

“Why?”

“It’s important,” Chris repeated.

“Why is it important?”

And slowly, Derek’s initial fury transformed into some kind of jaded inquisition. He crossed his arms carelessly and leaned back against the back of the couch. Chris had been informed by Allison that the alpha had been working on his anger issues and been learning how to better communicate. Briefly, he was reminded of Peter and how joyfully the old alpha could weave in and out of a debate and move it in a direction that benefited only himself. Even though Peter had been absent from Beacon Hills for nearly five years, it seemed part of his personality had remained and found a home in Derek. 

He knew that Derek wasn’t going to answer his question until he told him why he was here. Just the fact that he didn’t instinctively deny it made Chris suspect that Derek had slept with Kate, but he needed to know for sure. 

“Kate had a secret,” Chris explained. “After… leaving Beacon Hills –”

“You mean, after killing my entire family,” Derek cut in.

“Yes,” Chris sighed around the word. “She left Beacon Hills, moved to Texas and had a child,” he cut to the chase. 

For a moment Derek’s expression didn’t move and Chris thought maybe he should have built up the rising action a bit more before hitting the climax of the news. But then Derek’s eyes grew wide – and then shut. 

“Is this a joke?” Derek asked, his voice light still.

“No.” Chris shrugged. “She gave birth in January, mid-January and I know she was here in Beacon Hills in April – you do the math. I just thought, if there was a child –”

“That’s not possible,” Derek snapped. And suddenly the angry alpha was back. “I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, but I really don’t care to hear any more of it.”

“Not even if that child was yours?” Chris knew he was raising his voice, but the indifference and downright anger Derek was radiating was seriously pissing him off. Allison meant everything to him. And he knew that without her, he would be a completely different man. Her birth had changed him – definitely for the better. And the Argents had never done good by the Hales, but if Chris could just give Derek this – this chance to be a father, to have a family, a blood relative, a child – maybe that would ease his guilt over being related to the woman who had slaughtered the rest of his family. 

“I doubt it’s mine,” Derek grit out. “Your sister was a manipulative bitch. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was fucking most of Beacon Hills while she was here.”

That was all the confirmation Chris needed. If they hadn’t slept together, Derek would have refused the notion straight out. Even to the hunter’s ears, his claim seemed weak. 

Stuffing down the insult to his baby sister, Chris tried a different approach. “And if the child was a werewolf? The child would be reaching puberty right around now – they would be coming in to their werewolf powers soon. If he or she was adopted by a human family – which is the most likely thing that happened – that family will have no idea what is happening. That child will be on it’s own.”

“Not my problem,” Derek shrugged. 

“If it’s your child, it’s your problem,” Chris argued. 

“Not. My. Problem,” he snarled. His fangs glinted in the afternoon sun breezing in from the window. And in that moment, all the energy left Chris. 

You can lead a horse to water, he realized. Running a hand through his hair, he grabbed at his scalp. The pain cleared his head. 

“I tried,” Chris shrugged and hastily left.

~*~

Stiles pressed his ear closer to the screen, hoping that Chris wasn’t going to give up. But as the front door closed, he realized that Derek had won his round. Sighing softly, he leaned his head against the window frame, heavy under the burden of this news.

A kid? 

Kate Argent had a kid?

“Stiles,” Derek’s voice pitched up and the young man jerked into a standing position. “You can stop eavesdropping now.”

“I should have known you knew I was there,” Stiles tried to joke when he reentered the house. “You and your werewolf freakiness and all that.”

But Derek didn’t respond. He continued to lean against the desk, his arms crossed and his eyes tracing the wood patterns in the floorboards. 

“You… you really don’t believe Chris, huh?” Stiles tried to draw him out of his thoughts. 

Derek’s eyes shut and he gave the kind of sigh that jerked his entire body up in anticipation and then down in exhalation. “It… there is a possibility, of course. I had thought we were being careful, but I was wrong about a lot of things back then, wasn’t I?” He gave a dark snort and slid out of his passive stance. Returning to the paperwork, he hastily organized one stack. 

Stiles watched him, the muscles of his back ridged. This was weighing on him more than he would ever actually admit. “Derek,” Stiles began.

“Drop it,” Derek snapped. He paused and then continued his organizing. “And don’t tell the rest of the pack. Keep this to yourself and don’t go looking for it.”

It. Derek had called this child, “it”.

“You sure?” Stiles allowed his fingers to play with the hem of his t-shirt. “What if Argent is right? This might not just be about this kid being yours. I mean, if you don’t want to acknowledge the child, that’s up to you. But what if the kid is a werewolf? You at least have a duty to him or her as an alpha – even if you don’t want the duty of a father.”

“Rouge werewolves happen all the time,” Derek shrugged. “There is certainly an alpha in the area who will pick up on the fresh blood.”

“Derek,” Stiles tried one more time. 

“Stiles,” he groaned, finally turning to look at the brown-eyed meddler. His eyes jerked down a bit, catching the way Stiles was pulling at the bottom hem of his shirt. Blushing a bit, Stiles dropped the hem, but held Derek’s gaze. “Promise me you won’t pursue this.”

That could be taken multiple ways, couldn’t it? 

Letting his eyes trace the pattern of the ceiling, trying to form words that wouldn’t kick his heartbeat in such a way that would signal Derek of his ill-intentions, Stiles came to a decision. 

“I would never do anything that I thought would hurt you, Derek,” Stiles finally promised. 

There, let Derek work with that. Let Derek deal with whether Stiles meant he thought finding this child would hurt Derek, or help Derek. Or better yet, let Derek deal with whether Stiles thought that his not-so-hidden affection for the alpha would hurt Derek or help Derek. But Stiles didn’t let Derek verbalize a conclusion – he left without another word. 

He had research to do, anyways.


	2. Things Hidden in Washington

Stiles got to work instantly.

Having been a history major, he knew all the tricks to finding information that may or may not actually exist as easily as possible. He started by calling Allison. 

“Are you serious, Stiles?” Allison hushed her voice so that Scott’s freaky werewolf powers wouldn’t overhear their conversation. “My dad said that Derek wants nothing to do with this. Do you really think this is a good idea?”

“I think it’s important,” Stiles argued, his fingers gliding along the keyboard as he emailed Danny. If Stiles needed to hack into something, he wanted Danny. He trusted Danny. “If not for Derek, than for this kid.” 

“I mean – we don’t even know if the child is his,” Allison reminded him. 

“But what if he or she is?” Stiles hit enter and shifted the phone to his other ear. Leaning back in the chair at his desk, he asked, “What if this kid is a werewolf and doesn’t know it and needs help? At the very least, adopted kids have a right to know who their parents are.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Remember Jackson?” When Allison just sucked in a sharp breath, Stiles knew that she remembered how Jackson had turned into a giant, killer lizard because of identity issues from being adopted. “I just think… I think Derek’s lonely. I mean, people stop by but remember when that house was full of people?”

He could almost hear her wistful smile as she said, “I do. I remember when Scott first dragged me there and all I could think about was how upset my father would be if he knew I was hanging out at a house full of werewolves.”

“And now everyone has their own life, everyone has moved on and you know, Isaac lives there and I hang out there but I’m pretty sure I annoy the shit out of Derek and I just… want him to have a full house again,” Stiles concluded. And he did. He wanted Derek to have something better than a houseguest and an obnoxious, unemployed dude with a very obvious crush.

Wincing a bit at that line of thought, he glanced around. After four years of college, he had never expected to be back in his childhood room. But here he was, that stupid decal still on his wall

“But isn’t that something he should decide for himself?” On Allison’s side of the phone call, Stiles heard a knocking. “Be right there, babe!” she called, probably to Scott. “Stiles…”

“Allison, just – I just need to know the date and the hospital,” Stiles said. “There should be a record of a birth and adoption on their records.”

“And how are you getting into those records?” Allison asked. “You realize, there is something called privacy, right? There are laws to protect a patient’s privacy.”

“Allison…”

“Fine!” A door opened on the other end and Stiles could hear her footfalls against the wooden flooring of her apartment. “Hang on, Scott,” came her muffled voice. There was some shuffling of papers and then, “January 13th, 2006. Saint Sebastian Hospital. Got it?”

“Got it!” Stiles jotted the information down. “Thank you so much, Allison!”

“Don’t thank me yet, Stiles,” she warned him. “I’m just hoping this doesn’t blow up in your face.”

~*~

“Found it!”

Stiles nearly dropped the bowl of fruit he had been preparing for his favorite female companion. 

“You did?” he asked, stumbling out of the kitchen, up the stairs and into his bedroom.

Lydia Martin, in all her strawberry blonde glory, was leaning back in his desk chair, running her fingers through her locks. “Of course I did,” she said simply.

He came to stand behind her, sloping to see the screen. 

Danny was off the hacker-market and it seemed no baiting could get him to get back into the business. Stiles had been at a loss. He had considered calling Allison again and asking for more information but then Lydia had called – just a friendly catch-up. Stiles thought maybe it was fate and had told her the whole story with no hesitation, concluding the tale with a recommendation for a hacker. “I can do it,” Lydia had said.

“Really? Where did you learn to hack?” Stiles had asked. 

“Taught myself,” Lydia had scoffed. “After I got bored with advanced computer programing.”

And, goodness, she had done it. 

“Kate Argent,” Stiles read over her shoulder. “Gave birth to a daughter on January 13th. Adopted by Harry and June… Koch?”

“I think it’s pronounced more like “cook” and less like “cock”, Stiles,” she smirked. Stiles couldn’t see the smirk, but he knew it was there. “Stop being such a homo.” Stiles didn’t even have the ability to be offended. “And here’s the adoption records.” She pulled up another window.

“Morgan Koch?” Stiles squinted at the screen. “That’s her name?”

“Yup,” Lydia clicked something on the keyboard and the screen changed again. “She lives in Washington.”

“Washington!” he squawked. 

“At least it’s not New York,” Lydia shrugged. “Here’s the address, if you want it.”

“I do,” Stiles told her. He had found her. Her. Derek had a daughter – maybe. 

Suddenly Lydia swiveled back in the chair, nearly crashing into Stiles’ legs. “What are you hoping to prove?” she asked.

“Nothing, Lydia,” Stiles sighed. He was too preoccupied finding the directions from Beacon Hills to the city Morgan lived in – Elma? 

“Are you sure? Because I know once you get your ass in gear and tell Der-bear all about how you want to “make love” to him, you’ll eventually get together and be a couple and then you’ll want little green eyed, buzz-cut werewolf babies. I get it,” Lydia sighed. “But if this is your way of bypassing a surrogate, that’s really just tacky.”

Stiles tensed, but didn’t stop mentally planning his trip to Washington. “That obvious, huh?”

Lydia didn’t say anything for a moment and then reached out to him, gliding a hand through his buzz cut hair. He had grown it out junior and senior year of high school, but college meant tight funds and it was just easier to take the electric clippers to his skull himself. 

“We dated for six months, Stiles,” she reminded him. “Besides Jackson, that was my longest relationship before or since. And we’ve been best friends for way longer than that. I know you, maybe better than Scott does. I remember how over the moon you were when I accepted your dinner invitation. And when I kissed you. And when I slept with you.” Her fingernails grazed his skull. “But you always seemed like you were happy because you were getting something you’d always wanted – not because you were happy with me, or you, or our relationship. And I wasn’t surprised when you ended it.”

“I’m sorry,” Stiles muttered. And he was. She had been everything he had ever wanted and when he had finally gotten her – all of her, it hadn’t satisfied him the way he had thought it would have. Once he got what he wanted, he wanted more. And then he thought he was just the kind of person who was never satisfied with what he had and that it was some underlying personality flaw within him. 

Derek had changed that. Wanting Derek had changed that. He realized he didn’t want to be with Lydia because he wanted to be with Derek – he just hadn’t realized it while dating the blonde. 

“Don’t be,” she told him gently. “Well, actually – maybe you should be a little sorry. I mean, you haven’t dated anyone since, but eventually word will get around that I turned someone gay and that will dampen my sex-goddess reputation a little bit. If anyone asks, I’m great in bed, you got it?”

Stiles chuckled and nodded. 

“Also,” she continued. “Make sure you know what you’re getting into with this girl.”

And suddenly he was back to the present – back to plans and responsibilities. “I will,” he promised. 

~*~

Washington was far away. 

Sure, Beacon Hills was in northern California, but driving through Oregon was an obnoxious journey. Stiles was tired and nervous. On habit, he leaned over and opened the glove box to check that the wolfsbane was still in there. He had been smart enough to pack it – something Allison had said about born werewolves not showing signs of the werewolf curse until puberty when they would suddenly start reacting to the full moon and then be a full werewolf. If Morgan was a werewolf, she might not have transformed yet and there would be no way to check – except for wolfsbane. 

By the time Stiles reached Elma, Washington he wanted nothing more than grab some greasy food from the nearest, cheapest diner. But it was also about 3:30 in the afternoon. School would be getting out. Stiles really didn’t think that Mr. and Mrs. Koch would appreciate him just showing up at their house, demanding to talk to their thirteen-year-old daughter.

Feeling only a little bit like a pedophile, he pulled into the school parking lot and sat and waited. The bell rang and he was elated to watch all the youngsters clamber out of the school. He remembered when he and Scott would pack their backpacks before eighth period and so they could get out of that hell-hole as fast as possible.

Leaning out of his jeep, he tried to find her on sight. 

And then he realized that he had no idea what she looked like. Really, it was just like him, too – remembering the wolfsbane in case she was a wolf but forgetting to look up her facebook or something so that he knew what she looked like. Of course, would a thirteen-year-old have a facebook? It was 2019 – he figured anything was possible. 

Slowly, the crowd trickled away and Stiles sighed. Yes, this was a stupid plan. 

Stiles pulled out of the parking lot empty-handed and found the nearest fast-food place. And then he decided to find a motel room. He had given his dad some bullshit story about some research he needed in Washington. “This isn’t about pack stuff, right?” his father had asked. Stiles knew that the Sheriff knew that he was lying. But after all these years, Stiles wasn’t sure he had ever forgiven him from hiding the Beacon Hills werewolf secret from him for so long. His father was very hands-off now.

Of course, he wanted to go straight to a motel but his GPS decided to die. And that was how he ended up back at the school. Maybe he could ask someone for directions?

Grabbing his fries – because anyone with any sense eats the hamburger first and then the fries – he left his jeep. Following the sound of voices, he found himself on a track field. Was it track season? He guessed it was. Stiles climbed up into the bleachers to finish his fries, trying to get some service on his phone. Lydia had made him promise to check in every so often.

Surprisingly, there was a text message from Derek.

There’s a stain in my couch cushion. I didn’t know it was there this whole time because it’s the same cushion you always sit on, it said. 

Stiles nearly choked on his fries. 

Is that your way of telling me you miss me? he responded with a little smile. Derek never texted him, ever. He must either be very bored or very lonely. Stiles felt a boost of confidence in his quest, knowing that he was doing this so that Derek would be less lonely. Maybe.

“Morgan!”

Stiles shot up, looking around frantically. The students were all divided into groups, each group doing exercises. From this distance, Stiles couldn’t tell who had shouted out that name. There could be two Morgans, right? That was a common name, right?

But there it was – a jersey with the name “Koch” on the back. A long ponytail of honey blonde hair was obscuring the “h”, but Stiles knew it was her. She was in a group doing sprints, waiting in line to begin her turn. Unfortunately, she was facing away from him and he couldn’t glimpse her face.

And then it was her turn and she knelt down – her body coiling and then springing free. She wasn’t at all like a wolf, Stiles realized. She was like some kind of gazelle, lithe and effortless. As she took off, the speed pushed her bangs back out of her face and Stiles tensed. Why had he been looking for someone who looked like Derek? Why had he thought she would have raven hair and sparkling green eyes? Pale skin and strong brows? For whatever reason he had thought that, he was wrong. Morgan Koch was a glowing bronze, a honeycomb of warmth. She looked like Kate. Exactly like Kate. There was not way to tell if there was anything of Derek in her blood. 

“Sir!” 

Stiles jolted from his musings. Someone was hopping up the bleachers, towards him – one of the coaches.

“Yes?” he called down, resisting the urge to stand and flee. 

“What are you doing here?” It was obvious from the way the woman was looking at him, up and down, that she thought he was up to no good. She had a whistle around her neck that she kept fiddling with. And it was then that he realized he was some twenty-three year old, sitting in the bleachers of a junior high, watching young girls run around. Maybe this was a really bad idea.

“Uh,” Stiles wracked his brain. “Morgan,” he gestured to the girls down on the field. “Morgan Koch is my… cousin! And I am here to pick her up! But… I am early. So I thought I would wait… here. Right here.”

The coach looked him up and down again, frowning. “What’s her parent’s names?” the woman asked. 

His story had already taken form in his head and it was very easy now, to simply say, “Harry and June. June’s my mother’s sister,” he lied. He didn’t like lying about his mother, but if this lady asked his name, it would make more sense for them to have differing surnames. 

“Okay…” she still frowned up at him, but slowly retreated back to the field. 

This was a bad idea. And at this point, he really didn’t think he should have come here. This girl looked nothing like Derek. And from the few pictures he had seen of Laura, he knew that this girl didn’t look like her either. He had made a mistake coming here. 

He waited until practice was over, so not to draw suspicious to the already wary coach. It was only about ten minutes of a wait and then the girls were dismissed and then he was stalking back to his jeep. Sliding into the drivers seat he was about to put the keys into the ignition before his phone began to ring. He checked the caller ID… Lydia. Of course.

“Hey,” he greeted, reclining in his seat.

“Hey, any news?” 

It was good to hear a familiar voice, he decided. It was in this moment that he realized that, like most of his life, he had begun something without thinking it through. He was out of his league. 

“I saw her,” he said. “From a distance. She looks just like Kate. There is nothing of Derek in her, at all.”

“What did you expect?” Lydia chided him. “Remember biology? Half one parent, half the other and of course there are dominant and recessive genes. Did you think she was going to be a mini, female version of Derek?”

“I just… I thought I’d see her and just know,” he explained.

“Do you know if she’s a –“

Thunk, thunk.

Stiles swiveled in his seat and came face to face with soft green eyes set in a sharp, honey face. 

Morgan Koch looked at him through his window, a deep scowl on her face. Sweat still hung to her bangs, clumping them together and two streaks of pink decorated her cheeks. This was the first time Stiles could see her face, up close. She had a sharpness to her jaw that reminded him of Derek and her eyes were a glossy green – just like Derek’s. And Kate, he realized. Both of them had green eyes. But the way she was looking at him, that expression – it was such a Derek expression. 

“I’m… gonna call you back,” he said into his phone and then clicked it off. Clumsily, he rolled down his window.

“Hey,” he greeted her.

“I saw you in the bleachers,” she began. “I don’t know who you are, but according to my coach you’re my cousin and you’re here to pick me up. We both know you’re lying – so tell me the truth. Who are you and how do you know my name and my parents names?”

He was at a loss. All he could think to say was, “If I was a pedophile here to kidnap you, the last thing you should do is come up to my car. Don’t they teach stranger-danger anymore?”

“Yeah, maybe in kindergarten,” she scoffed. Stiles could imagine both Kate and Derek making that same sound. “I’m not scared of you and there are a bunch of other parents still here. If you tried to kidnap me, I’d scream and be rescued.”

“You’re a bratty little thing,” Stiles finally managed to say.

“How do you know my parent’s names?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because I don’t know you but apparently you know me. How?” Her green eyes sparkled as she put her hands on her waist. No, she wasn’t scared. In fact, she seemed thrilled – exciting that there might be danger in this jeep. It was such a… Kate-trait. 

Stiles looked more closely at her, searching for some kind of sign that he was doing right – that this wasn’t a mistake. And then he realized that he was looking for Derek in her. If this was Derek’s daughter, then he was doing something good – this wasn’t a mistake. He couldn’t tell and so instead he reached over, into his glove box. Morgan tensed, watching him warily. He removed the wolfsbane flower and held it out to her. 

Gingerly, she took it, frowning down at the little purple buds. “What is this?” she asked.

He didn’t know what he had been expecting – some reaction, maybe a spontaneous transformation. But she didn’t do anything, just twirled the sprig in between her fingers. Stiles sighed. She could still be Derek’s, right? Just didn’t get the werewolf gene. He had said he had human relatives – maybe it wasn’t completely dominant in the genetics. But he would need an actual DNA test and he didn’t have Derek’s DNA handy. He’d have to come back.

“Ah!”

Morgan jerked forward, clutching her chest. The flower fell to the concrete. Then she gave another gasp. As she pulled her hand away from her chest, Stiles was able to see claws springing from her fingers and where those same claws had dug into the flesh of her chest.

In horror, she held her hand up to her face. Slowly, the claws retracted back into her fingers and only then did she glance back up at Stiles, her mouth still unhinged. 

“What…?”

That was all Stiles needed to see. This was Derek’s daughter. And she was a werewolf and she didn’t know it.

“Have your parents told you yet that you’re adopted?” he asked, mercilessly. This was no time to tread too softly. Maybe before the claws and wolfsbane, but not now. 

“…Yes,” she admitted, furrowing her brows at him. “But what does that have to do with… what does that have to do with what just happened?” Her shock seemed to pass quickly and now she was growing frustrated.

“I know your father – your biological father,” Stiles explained. “And I knew your mother. Please, get in the car. We can go grab coffee or something.”

She didn’t hesitate. “I was supposed to go home with Gina, let me tell her you’re giving me a ride home instead.” And with that she jogged off. Why had Stiles expected her to put up a fight? 

It seemed this girl was nothing like he had expected. 

Quickly, she jogged back and appeared on the passenger side. “Let’s go,” she ordered, throwing her backpack into the trunk.

“Bossy,” Stiles muttered. 

“Who’s my father?” she demanded immediately. “And what do you mean you “knew” my mother? Why don’t you know her anymore? Is she dead? And what was that flower?”

“One question at a time!” he raised his voice. Preteens were so curious. “Your father is a friend of mine – Derek Hale. Yes, your biological mother died about seven years ago. That flower was wolfsbane.”

She was quiet and so Stiles glanced over at her. When she realized she was being watched she explained, “I always thought… Nevermind.”

“You always thought you’d get a chance to meet her?” Stiles guessed. 

“Maybe,” she shrugged. “Or if I couldn’t, it was because she was dead – like, she’d died given birth to me. Like, she didn’t have a choice to give me up.”

Stiles opened his mouth to say something comforting but… there was nothing there. What could he say? He knew Kate Argent and he knew that she had probably hated carrying and bearing a werewolf’s child. Keeping Morgan had never been a viable choice for Kate. Instead Stiles said, “I don’t think she had a choice.” It was as close to the truth as possible.

She seemed to accept that explanation. “And that flower?”

Here, he hesitated. “Let’s sit and talk, okay?”

“Those were claws,” she pushed. “I wasn’t hallucinating.”

“I know,” he tried to rationalize.

“Don’t tell me my biological parents are some kind of magical creature and you’re here to whisk me off to fulfill my destiny,” she scoffed. “I’m not going to be part of a Twilight rip-off.”

Thankfully, they pulled into the parking lot of a local café before Stiles could mentally comment on how nonplussed this girl was about the fact that she had just had claws poking out of her fingers. Sure, at the time, she had seemed terrified, but she had recovered quickly.

Stiles let her order first, promising to pay but she ordered a latte, whipped out a wallet, and paid the barista. The young man was left standing there, shaking his head. This chick was… so much like Derek. 

“Flower, claws, explain,” she ordered when they finally took their seats in the most secluded corner. She had some whipped topping on her bottom lip, but Stiles didn’t tell her about it – he liked how young it made her look, especially when she was barking out orders. 

Following her speech pattern, Stiles simply said, “Werewolf.”

She blinked at him and then blinked again and then giggled. It was the youngest he’d seen her look since meeting her. “Werewolf?” she asked. “What are you smoking? Didn’t I say I wasn’t going to put up with the Twilight-bullshit?”

“Language!” Stiles gasped, mostly out of shock that that had come out of her mouth, rather than actual offense. 

“Listen, Forks – the place where Twilight is set – is like, a few towns over from here,” she explained. “We get all kinds of tourists and half of them are crazy. They think they’re vampires, werewolves – oh, excuse me, shapeshifters. Nuts, all of them. Now, really – what was that flower? Some kind of hallucinogen?”

“Morgan, I’m not lying to you,” he said. “I know it sounds so weird and if I were you, I probably wouldn’t believe me either.”

“Werewolves?”

“Yes, and you’re one – you’re a werewolf,” he explained. “Your father –”

“Why isn’t he here?” she asked. “Why isn’t he the one telling me this?”

“Well,” the truth just blurted out. “He doesn’t know I’m here.”

She stared at him for a moment and then dropped her gaze to the latte in front of her. “You’re here to tell me I’m a werewolf and that my father doesn’t want to come see me himself,” she repeated, slowly, tasting the words and how bitter the reality of them was. 

“Well, that’s not, exactly, I mean,” Stiles stumbled over his words. 

“Listen,” she leaned close to the young man and not for the first time, seemed much older than her thirteen years. “I don’t know what you’re trying to pull. I don’t. You’re crazy. There is no such thing as werewolves.”

“Fine,” Stiles sighed. “You don’t believe me, I get it. Just give me some time to explain.”

“No,” she shook her head. “I don’t know how you know my name, but I don’t care. Maybe you really do know my father – maybe my mother really is dead. But honestly, I don’t care. I’m happy. I have a normal life with two wonderful parents who would never dream of giving me up willingly or sending some lackey to see me instead of coming himself. So, leave. Go back to wherever you came from and take your stupid drug-flower with you.”

She stood up and grabbed her latte. 

“Morgan,” Stiles stood as well. “Just…” He frantically searched his pockets and produced his card. He had had those stupid things printed up right out of college and had only given away two others. “Take my card. If you – if you need to contact me, you can. I know you don’t believe me, or want to believe me, but one day you are going to need to face what you are. Here,” he held it out to her. 

“I don’t want your card,” she snapped. “I don’t care who you are.”

Stiles coughed to buy some time and then fumbled for a pen in his pocket. “This is your father’s address,” he told her as he scribbled the address for the Hale house down. “And this is his phone number. His name’s Derek Hale.” He curled the last letter off with a flourish and held the card out to her once more.

After some minor hesitation, she took it. And then she was out the café doors.


End file.
